Missing: 50 million Indian girls

ROHTAK, India — In recent years, the world has been shocked bythe Taliban's ruthless suppression of women in Afghanistan,the practice of female genitalmutilation in parts of Africa and the abuse of female domestic labor inplaces like Saudi Arabia. Yet it is the world's largest democracy that is the undeclared winner in the contest of violence against women.

In India, female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls - has led to an alarming "gender gap" in the country's population. In 1990, when the census showed that there were 25 million more males than females in India, the government reacted by introducing a law making it illegal to detect the sex of a foetus through ultrasound examination. Yet by 2001, thegender gap had risen to 35 million, and now experts estimate it as high as 50 million.

The practice of female infanticide has a long history in India: Because of the widespread cultural preference for sons, many baby girls used to be killed after birth. But modern technology, particularly the ultrasound machine, has made iteasier for parents, and highly profitablefor doctors, to practice female foeticidewithout great risk of detection and punitive legal action.

Assumed to be prevalent among Hindus, because of their custom requiring male progeny to perform cremation rites, female foeticide is in fact found today to be equally rampant among Sikhs, Muslims and Christians.

Likewise, the practice has usually been presumed to be most prevalent among the poor and illiterate, because of spiraling dowry demands made on brides by the groom's family, as well as other traditional prejudices.However, recent UN and Indian studiesreveal that female foeticide is todaymost frequent among the rich andhighly educated. One study maps the increased frequency of female foeticide with rising levels of education - lowestamong women with a fifth-grade education and highest among women withuniversity degrees.

The consequences of female foeticideand the resulting gender gap arealready unfolding: Girls are being trafficked from impoverished neighboringcountries like Bangladesh and Nepal or from disadvantaged or tribal areas in India andsold into marriage for the equivalent of about $200 (in Haryana State, a bull costs $1,000). With 50 million girlsalready missing today, the result of this dangerous practice is ineluctable: A society without women, even if today it isthe world's second-most populous, isdoomed to eventual extinction.

Early this year, after Health MinisterAnbumani Ramadoss expressed despair at the government's inability to re- verse this calamitous situation despitelegislation and other policies, religiousleaders of all faiths convened an "Interfaith People's Yatra (or Journey) ofCompassion," a kind of travelingprotest march, on female foeticide. Itwas organized by the Arya Samaj, a reformist social-religious movementfounded in 1875, with the support of the central and state governments, Unicefand Unifem.

Earlier this month, participants in the Yatra traversed India's worst-affected northern states in their motor convoy, generating a mounting wave of awareness and action among religious and political leaders, civic activists, women'sgroups, students and teachers.As we marched, we shouted in our thousands, "Sons and daughters are thesame! Save our daughters to save ourcountry!"

Our position is categorical:Ending female foeticide is not in itselfenough. All forms of gender injusticemust be stopped.

The treatment ofwomen as second-class citizens isdeeply embedded in the Indian mindset, whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh,Christian, Jain or Parsee.Despite legislation making dowry illegal, dowry demands are exorbitantand still result in an estimated 25,000 dowry deaths a year, at the hands of avaricious grooms and in-laws.Child widows are meted execrable treatment and are denied the right of remarriage.

Even when daughters are allowed to go to school, they areburdened with household chores, leading to high drop-out rates. Across all the religions, the birth of a son is celebratedwhile the birth of a daughter ismourned.

Until sons and daughters are treated equally, until life is made safe for the Indian woman, the country remains morally under siege. Our march demandsnot only an end to female foeticide, butto all forms of violence against women.It demands respect for women's rightsand dignity from birth to death.